The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Vehicle article carriers are used in a wide variety of applications to transport a wide variety of articles on an exterior surface of a motor vehicle, such as a car, truck, SUV, etc. Often, such vehicle article carrier systems include a pair of side rails that are fixedly mounted to a roof portion of the vehicle, and a pair of cross bars that are coupled between the side rails. The cross bars are used to support articles thereon above an outer body surface of the vehicle. One or more of the cross bars may be adjustable in position along the side rails so that the spacing between the cross bars can be optimized to best suit a particular article being supported on the cross bars.
Some vehicle article carrier systems employ cross bars that have a single side release mechanism. However, these mechanisms are often complex and/or expensive to construct. A single side release mechanism allows locking components at each end of the cross bar to be simultaneously released from engagement with both of the side rails, when an operator manually engages an actuating or unlocking element at one side of the cross bar. Thus, there is no need for the user to walk around to the opposite side of the vehicle to unlock the other end of the cross bar from its associated side rail.
While single sided release mechanisms used with cross bars in an article carrier system have added significant convenience to the operation and adjustment of the cross bars on a vehicle article carrier system, it would nevertheless be desirable to provide a vehicle article system having a single sided releasable cross bar that requires only a small number of independent component parts for its operation. It would also be desirable to provide a single side release cross bar that is of robust construction.